The Lion's Brood Part 30

"G.o.ds! What were those shrill sounds--half whistle, half scream?"

Too well he remembered how the Numidians urged on their bridleless chargers. Yes, there they were now--scarce half a milestone behind and coming up like the wind that blew through their dishevelled manes--fifty at least. Death, then, was decreed, after all, and he glanced toward Marcia, measuring the time when he might kiss her and kill her ere he sold his own life to the javelins.

Suddenly he heard her cry out.

"Look!" she called, and, following her finger, he gazed eagerly ahead.

A clump of hors.e.m.e.n, heavy armed with helmet and corselet, crowned the knoll of rising ground over which the road led, and, above them, fluttering in the breeze, he saw the square vexillum of the cavalry of the legion.

He was among them now, lifting Marcia from her horse and dimly conscious of many words being spoken around.

"See, lord, they have halted," said a voice. "Is it your will that we pursue?"

Then, as an answering voice replied in the negative, he kissed Marcia and made her drink wine that some one brought. Barbarous cries that she must not hear or understand came to his ears, and he knew that their pursuers were wheeling in discomfited flight. The circle of soldiers stood back. Something cold and feathery fell upon his upturned face and turned to moisture. He saw a tall man with features of wonderful beauty regarding them kindly and in silence; his white paludamentum was heavily fringed with purple, and Sergius recognized him now,--Marcus Marcellus, the new dictator. Another drop, feathery, cold, and moist, fell upon Marcia's hand, and she roused herself at the touch, peering up into her lover's face and then quickly at the heavens.

"Look!" she cried. "Up! not into my eyes."

He turned, for an instant, to see the blue vault of a few moments since overcast with gray and filled with a swirl of snowy flakes.

"See, now, Lucius, lord of my life; here are the messengers of winter.

Winter quarters! he is in winter quarters! See! have we not prevailed?"

It was the voice of the dictator that answered:--

"Yes, truly; and there shall soon be prepared for him eternal summer quarters in Phlegethon--if the Greek tales be true."